


Sunday, Monday or Always

by kissingandcrying



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-21
Updated: 2019-01-27
Packaged: 2019-08-27 08:53:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16699342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kissingandcrying/pseuds/kissingandcrying
Summary: “Do you want to know why I’ve called you here, Newt?” Dumbledore asked suddenly. He looked up from the case with such a familiar sense of endearment that Newt had to look away. He’d always struggled to say no to Dumbledore. Whatever that meant of the man’s motivations with Newt wasn’t clear, but the unfortunate truth was that there was little the man could ask him to do that he wouldn’t atleast try. Before he could say yes, Dumbledore continued, “I need your help. I don’t know any person more fitting for the job than you.”“And what is the job?” Newt asked.





	1. Sunday, Week One

It had been years since Newt had wandered down the halls of Hogwarts.

Little about them had changed. As Newt walked quickly through the corridors toward the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, he considered the same chipped bricks that he’d spent years running past, the dim candles that seemed to never run out, the residual scent of burning wood and old leaves. It was the familiarity of being back and falling into habits. In minutes he’d be rounding the corner of the classroom, not quite late to the lesson but kissing the line in a way that earned him _zero_ favors.

He could imagine it easily. The soft sigh of admonishment before Dumbledore said, “Newt, how is it that _every day_ you're late?”

Perhaps the simplest answer had always been that Newt liked routine. He gripped the handle of his case more tightly and thought about his beasts. He’d met his Niffler by accident; sitting in a park every evening for a month watching the muggles hurriedly go about their business. Just once, he had made the mistake of carrying around his mother’s old necklace (a Hippogriff relic from her time as a breeder) and it hadn’t taken more than once for Nelly to crawl her way out of her burrow and sneak into his pocket to take it. Three more trips in and he’d wrangled her into his case. They’d become quick companions after.

Newt had learned so much from his compulsive repetitions. He was only in this building because of them, and he’d gained more than he’d ever lost from following his impulses.

As he reached the room, Newt adjusted his large yellow and gray scarf around his neck and walked in. It was winter outside but the inside of the school was warm and cozy, the classroom exceptionally so. There was the smell of pine and the soft sound of music leaking from the back of the classroom, but Dumbledore was nowhere to be seen.

“ _...trade them for a package of sunshine and flowers. If you want the things you love, you must have showers. So when you hear it thunder, don’t run under a tree…”_

Newt walked past the empty desks to the back of the room. He set his case down and removed his scarf timidly. He breifly wondered where his old professor had walked off to, but the distracting scribbles on the board that outlined the initial effects of lycanthropy caught Newt's eye and he moved closer to read what the board said, eyes squinted at Dumbledore’s terrible writing.

“Lycanthropy, or werewolfry, is highly contagious. The illness is spread via bodily fluids which must enter the bloodstream in order to be effective.  It is not genetically inherited and thus persons with direct relation to a lycanthrope will not be at risk for contracting the illness. There is no cure for Lycanthropy, though its effects can be mitigated by use of potions, spells, and otherwise. A werewolf will only harm humans. It is not uncommon then, and is in fact important for them to make friends with other animals that they encounter while transformed.”

“Why, I wonder?”

Newt sucked in a breath so sharply that his chest hurt. He spun around from the board, almost knocking it over in the process. Dumbledore was standing in the corner of the room with one hand in his pocket and the other cradling a small, glowing orb. Newt cleared his throat and looked down at his briefcase. He’d left it sitting between the two of them, rocking steadily from side to side.

“Because otherwise they attack themselves,” Newt answered. His voice was shaking but it felt impossible for him to not answer. Werewolves had always been one of his favorite subjects.

“Out of frustration, out of a lack of awareness, out of… loneliness. I assume that making friends with the other animals is a welcome distraction. Though correct me if I’m wrong; many animals are social by nature and so perhaps it’s none of the above.”

“It’s much easier to survive with larger numbers,” Newt agreed.

Dumbledore always seemed to exude tranquility. He walked towards Newt, rolling the orb in his hand as he closed the gap between them. He was smiling widely, his blue eyes creased around the edges, and Newt noticed that his hair had gotten just a bit longer. His beard had grown in, too. There were so many minute differences about Dumbledore that were noticeable, but none that had tampered with his charm.

“It is good to see you Newt. It’s been a bit of time, hasn’t it?”

“Three years,” Newt clarified. He watched as Dumbledore shoved his trinket in his pocket and then grabbed the handle of his briefcase and lifted the battered thing off of the ground. It lifted easily and Dumbledore raised his eyebrows, shocked. Newt quickly stuttered, “I’ve expanded the… the inside. I haven’t gotten rid of any creatures.”

“No. You wouldn’t, would you?”

Dumbledore considered the case for a long moment. Behind them, the music was still playing. The song had changed but the tinny sound of Bing Crosby’s voice was still playing over the gramophone in the corner.

“Do you want to know why I’ve called you here, Newt?” Dumbledore asked suddenly. He looked up from the case with such a familiar sense of endearment that Newt had to look away. He’d always struggled to say no to Dumbledore. Whatever that meant of the man’s motivations with Newt wasn’t clear, but the unfortunate truth was that there was little the man could ask him to do that he wouldn’t atleast _try_. Before he could say yes, Dumbledore continued, “I need your help. I don’t know any person more fitting for the job than you.”

“And what is the job?” Newt asked.

“The ministry is currently going through a split. The Beast and Being divisions are arguing about the placement of werewolves in their departments and so while I’ve asked for them to send a representative to help me, I’ve gotten little correspondence from them. They’re busy with categorizing our lycanthropic friends. I’ve decided to work this case of mine alone,” Dumbledore answered quietly. He held Newt’s suitcase out to him and said, “and I know how you love cases.”

“Only ones to do with creatures.”

“Beasts, humans, or otherwise. You’re a proponent for the fair treatment of living things. That’s why I need you.”

Newt took his suitcase and held it in front of himself. He wanted to think of himself as a just and righteous man like that, but it felt wrong. Dumbledore’s praises had always been too high. And yet Newt stood wondering if he could actually turn down an opportunity to work on a project like… this. Whatever it was.

“You didn’t mention the job.”

“Ah,” Dumbledore laughed. “Yes. I’ll explain briefly. There’s a man in the south of France who has recently given up years of scientific research. He’s a lot like you, Newt. He loves animals and anything that resembles them, but he stretched himself too thin and has now become overwhelmed by his circumstances. He has neglected his duties as a caretaker for these animals and they’re dying, scared, uncared for. They're creating issues that, if they aren't taken care of, might see the ministry put all of these creatures down. Foremost is providing the care they need to survive. If we can accomplish that then the ministry has no reason to tamper with them and we can... well we can take care of the rest.”

“The animals are sick. You need a magizoologist.”

Dumbledore raised his eyebrows. “I have a magizoologist. If only he’d agree to accompany me.”

Newt looked down at his case. The handle was vibrating beneath his fingers. He’d spent years cultivating the reserve inside of it. Since he’d been a student at Hogwarts, his entire world had focused itself around the creatures that he’d read about in books. It was only after he went looking for trouble that they found their way into his arms, into his home, and into every second of his life. No matter what he did, he always found himself in a position like this. He wanted to go with Dumbledore. He wanted to follow the man to France and fix the broken things he knew he’d see when he got there. It was like a habit.

No, compulsion was truly a much more strongly suited word.

“There is nobody else?” Newt asked.

“Nobody else that I’d like to ask, no,” Dumbledore admitted. “You are ideal for this opportunity. I will travel there alone if you feel overwhelmed by it. I wouldn’t think any less of you for telling me no. But I know that you would thrive in this environment. Since years ago, when you were a student of mine, you’ve been sticking your hands into situations like these. You are more curious than anyone I’ve ever met and because of it, you’re stronger than you know.”

Newt was overwhelmed. He shook his head and turned back to the board. Dumbledore’s handwriting was spread wide across the surface, snippets of information that Newt had compartmentalized so long ago that he couldn’t remember when it’d even happened. God, he wanted to go.

He wanted to go.

“I want to go,” Newt whispered. “I want to go with you.”

“Then come with me,” Dumbledore suggested. “I need you.”

And it was the moment that the words left his mouth that Newt knew it was the right choice to make. His body thrummed with an energy he hadn’t felt since the days of crawling through the woods on his hands and knees, looking for injured Murtlaps and Bowtruckles. He remembered his mother giving him his first small sanctuary; it was a box made out of glass and had five baby Bowtruckles inside, all standing on the branches of their tiny trees and looking up at Newt expectantly. Waiting for him to care for them.

It was a non-issue. Newt would never have said no to something like this.

He nodded his head and then said as firmly as possible, "Yes. Of course I'll go. When should I be ready?" 

 


	2. Monday, Week One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic has to be extended because I'm crap at writing long chapters.

Newt had never taken a boat across the water. He’d been born into a wizarding family and always had full use of his magic and so he’d never needed to go through the process of boarding transport, settling in, and then waiting out the long hours of the journey in less than comfortable lodgings. 

It was only a slight inconvenience. Yes, the time of travel had stretched a bit, but the captain had offered them soup. When Newt had started shaking in the cabin from the cold, the man had also pulled out a large woolen blanket and handed it off with a short smile and a nod of his head. It wasn’t the coziest way to get from point A to point B, but Newt was enamored by the process anyway. It was more of a journey than simply disappearing from a grassy plain and reappearing under the Eiffel. 

Dumbledore seemed to be taking the hours in stride. He had bought a book with him and was sitting under the light of a gas lamp flipping through the pages. His face looked a bit more worn than Newt was used to. Though he’d always had laugh lines and crows feet, they were much harder to see. His face was less expressive and he seemed a bit tired.

“What are you reading?” Newt asked curiously.

Dumbledore looked up from his book. Even in the dim light his eyes were a startling shade of blue. They were almost translucent. Newt looked right into them. 

“A book about Sirens,” Dumbledore responded. He dog-eared his page and then handed the book to Newt. “It’s about the wizarding communities history of… categorization, you could say.”

Newt adjusted the blanket so that he could hold the book. It was heavy and thick, and it looked like perhaps the most boring book that Newt had ever seen in his life. Not that he was keen on reading things like  _ this _ . Even in classes at Hogwarts, he preferred the lectures to the hours of sitting and responding to text. But Dumbledore didn’t seem like the type to read this sort of thing either. Newt flipped open to the dog-eared page and said, “How is it?”

“Boring,” Dumbledore said. “What little I’ve read of it. I didn’t start at the beginning.”

Newt smiled down at the pages and said, “Then where on earth did you start?”

And Dumbledore reached over and placed his finger at the top of the page.

“You didn’t really read it at all,” Newt commented quietly. He looked over at Dumbledore curiously and said, “But you’ve had the book open for ages.”

“Yes. Not reading but thinking. It’s much easier to get away with quiet moments in a place full of people if you have a book with you.” 

They were in the cabin of a ship. It wasn’t quite full - there was a captain, his two deckhands, and a few stragglers who had joined them on the dock at the last second with their scarves and full suitcases. All of them were congested into the captain’s area with their belongings in the hopes of avoiding the stray water and the rain outside. Dumbledore’s process of finding a quiet moment while in company was impressive. Newt smiled at him and whispered, “I’ll remember that the next time I’ve got a lot of unwanted company.” 

“Or even wanted company,” Dumbledore clarified. “Sometimes you just need a moment.”

Newt loved moments. He didn’t have trouble making them for himself; when he wanted a minute to think he simply put on his boots, opened the lid of his case, and then crawled into it. There were so many habitats that needed maintenance and Newt didn’t have a problem working in any of them, spending time with the animals that lived there. The difference between his form of solitude and Dumbledore’s was that only Dumbledore could still find a way to be with people even when he wasn’t  _ with _ people. Newt left entirely.

“Either way, it seems that the message here is to carry more books,” Newt said as he offered the book back.

Dumbledore leaned back against the wooden structure behind the two of them and took a deep breath. The cabin had only gotten colder and when he exhaled there was a small cloud of air. Winter out at sea wasn’t ideal, but on a boat full of muggles they’d already committed to their form of transportation.

“I had a friend that was very well-read once,” Dumbledore said quietly. He looked at Newt. “He always seemed to have a book with him. As such, he was very well-spoken. He had words up his sleeve that could convince any young, impressionable person that they were the sun.”

“And who was he?” Newt asked.

Dumbledore hesitated. It was the first time that Newt had seen him unsure of what to do. He opened his mouth to respond and ended up saying, “Just an old friend. I’m not sure why I’m thinking of him now.”

The boat rocked them both from side to side, hitting wave after wave. Newt looked out of the window but couldn’t differentiate the skyline from the sealine. It was all dark with just the moon and what little reflection it provided on the water’s surface. Newt wrapped the blanket a bit more tightly around himself and leaned back. He thought about all of the other people in the cabin who were either sleeping or talking quietly and wondered why they were going to France. It kept him occupied for a good half an hour before he realized that he wanted to climb into his luggage and check on his creatures.

“I've read a lot about them, but this isn’t much of a ship, Dumbledore,” Newt commented quietly as he watched the captain wobble at the wheel.

“No,” Dumbledore said. “More a… glorified fishing boat.” 

Dumbledore hadn’t changed in that regard. He always had a response to even the dullest and dimmest circumstance. Newt briefly thought about his first class at Hogwarts; He’d ran to make it on time and had arrived at the class flustered and red-faced, tripping up to his desk and spilling his papers all over the place in the process. Dumbledore had smiled at him and said, “Well if nothing else, I certainly appreciate the enthusiasm.” 

Had it really been so many years since he’d left that place? Had he lived an entire life outside of his school and still wound up coming back to it? 

Sitting next to Dumbledore, it honestly felt like no time had passed at all. Newt closed his eyes slowly and allowed the waves of the sea to rock him to sleep.

* * *

 

 

France at this time of year could only be described as a frigid place.

The weather was gloomy and gray and there was so much snow. Newt had barely stepped off of the boat before he’d realized that his scarf wasn’t adequate enough for the weather. He’d wrapped it securely around his neck anyway, cradling his case against his chest as he’d disembarked and started the long, arduous journey of finding the downtrodden wizard with the failing zoo.

The man lived in Annecy, an alpine town with gravel roads that had been covered by snow. The once-colorful buildings had been muted by the elements and though the canal was as gorgeous as ever, the boats that floated on the water were covered in tarps that were as white as the rest of it. Newt considered everything as they went; he’d only ever visited France a few times and not once had he come in the winter. By the time they arrived at what amounted to an old wall in the back of alley, Newt’s fingers felt frozen solid and he wasn’t overly impressed by the experience.

Dumbledore turned to say something, but paused momentarily before asking, “Are you alright, Newt? You look freezing.”

“Well it is winter in France,” Newt said. He sniffed loudly. “I expected a little less walking.”

Dumbledore put down his suitcase and began to pull his hands out of his gloves. 

“Oh, no, please. I’m alright.”

“It’s not a problem,” Dumbledore told him. He yanked his gloves off by the fingertips and handed them over. “Take these for the time being.”

“But your hands-” 

“Are perfectly fine,” Dumbledore assured him. He had already begun to remove his scarf, too. Newt couldn’t argue quickly enough before the second one was around his shoulders. It was woolen and thick. The warmth of it was almost as good as the scent; it was as if someone had dipped the cloth into a bucket of dried wood and evergreen and then left it alone for weeks. “It isn’t much longer from here. Perhaps a small trek up the path once we’re through.”

Newt put his own case on the ground and slipped the gloves on. The effect was immediate. Dumbledore had charmed them. Newt sighed and rubbed his hands together for good measure, and then said, “Thank you.” 

Dumbledore just winked at him and turned back to the brick wall. “This area was given to our friend some years ago by magical law enforcement under the impression that the animals which found themselves here would be kept away from the public. Though it’s a beautiful place, it’s not without its problems. Namely...”

“The animals,” Newt finished for him, turning back to the wet brick.  

The whole thing reminded Newt of Diagon Alley. Dumbledore tapped the wall in front of them with the head of his wand. As the bricks cleared away, Newt half expected a series of shops and wizards to be on the other side. Instead, it was a large field with a singular path that wound upwards to what looked like a large cottage.

“Is that where we’re going?”

“Yes,” Dumbledore answered briefly. He picked up his suitcase and began to walk and Newt followed blindly. 

The area behind the wall felt a bit colder than the alley. The snow was sparse (likely the work of the protective enchantments surrounding the place), but the wind was still biting. Newt burrowed down a bit further in his coat and watched Dumbledore walk confidently in front of him. The man was much more appropriately dressed. His coat was long, black, and calf-length so that when he walked his legs were kicking out the tails of it. Now that he didn’t have a scarf, he’d resorted to holding up his collar so that it could cover the back of his neck. 

“How did you meet this man, exactly?” Newt called.

“I’ve had a lot of students since becoming a teacher. I like to think I’ve done a fairly good job of  encouraging them to come to me if they need me.”

“The man was a student?” Newt asked. 

“His daughter,” Dumbledore clarified. “She’s still at the school and is in my Transfiguration class. A very bright student who would like to keep her father out of prison if she can help it. I promised I’d do everything in my power to help. This is the only break of the year long enough to put a dent in the problem.”

Hogwarts’ vacation was two weeks long. As Newt approached the building, he wasn’t particularly convinced that the time period was long enough to even put a  _ dent _ in the issue. Now that he was close enough, he could see what looked like the abandoned remains of a stone cottage. The windows looked fragile; there were missing panes everywhere. The candle sconces on either side of the door were made of wood which had been stained by exposure to the wet and humidity, and the candles in them were glowing almost uselessly, they were so dull. Only magic could have been responsible for them still putting up the fight to illuminate the space around them. Newt paused in his steps and saw Dumbledore do the same. When the man turned around, he was smiling. 

“Does this make you nervous?”

“I’m not sure nervous is the right word,” Newt said honestly. “But I think that the issue here might be larger than the animals. To remind you, I am significantly worse at treating humans.” 

Dumbledore threw his head back and laughed. “No, no, of course. I’ll handle the human.” 

Newt knew next to nothing about the man that Dumbledore was here to help. He’d been breifed very quickly on the state of the creatures but hadn’t gotten more than a name and an age for their owner. Though he’d had few expectations about who would answer the door, he was still surprised to see the man that stood on the other side of it when it finally opened. 

The man looked young and had a head full of brown hair. He wore round spectacles that barely fit his face and he looked nervous to be seeing them, but not at all sickly and uninspired like Newt might have guessed. The man seemed perfectly fit to carry on a business if need be. Newt considered him curiously while the man let out a strange sound and said, “Oh,  _ my _ . Dumbledore!”

“It’s good to see you again, Francis,” Dumbledore greeted cordially. “Might we come in? It’s quite cold out here and I’m afraid I’ve dragged my companion around enough for the day.” 

“Yes, yes, certainly,” The man said, backing out of the way and pulling the door open.

Dumbledore ushered Newt inside and then followed him into the warmth. The house wasn’t the worst that Newt had seen but it was bad. There was clear evidence of critters laying claim to the space. None of the newspapers were whole; all of them had been shredded in some form or another. There was feed scattered around the buckled wooden floors. The windows that Newt had considered earlier were actually worse from the inside, covered in dirt spots and fecal matter. The smell of ammonia was also too familiar. Newt took a deep breath and turned to Francis.

“Hello, Francis. My name is Newton Scamander and I’m a…” with a quick look at Dumbledore, Newt stuttered, “a m-magizoologist.”

Dumbledore didn’t have to say or do anything for Newt to know that he was proudly patting himself on the metaphorical back.

“I’m sorry to have you here under these conditions. I wish I’d have-I’d have cleaned up or, or done more to make it comfortable-” Francis began to ramble. He turned around suddenly as if he’d forgotten something, but then began to pick up errant pieces of paper of lint, laying them in his palm in an effort to neaten up. It was pointless. There were too many little things that needed to be done. 

“It’s alright. If you have a room for us then that’s the most we can ask for,” Dumbledore said softly. “We’re not here to criticize your home.” 

Newt’s fingers were twitching on his breifcase. He wanted to crawl inside of it and check on his own creatures, but he couldn’t do it here. Not in this entryway with all of this open space. Not with so many territorial marks around and no creatures to attribute them to. He couldn’t look at Francis right now, but he didn’t want the lack of eye contact to come off as dismissive or rude. Instead he cleared his throat and said, “Yes. The animals are our primary concern. I’d like to meet them right after I’ve put my things away.”

Francis looked slightly dejected. He nodded his head and pointed them in the direction of a long hallway a few feet from them. “The room is just this way.”

Dumbledore peered down the hallway and said, “There’s only one door that way. Am I to assume that it’s ours?”

“Yes.”

“Then please don’t worry. We’ll see ourselves down and unpack.”

Newt wondered for a second if Dumbledore was a mind-reader. It seemed like such a small thing, but he was so exhausted already that seeing themselves to their room was a godsend. He wanted nothing less than to follow some strange social etiquette for first meetings and be followed around by a person he didn’t really know. The building was slightly too cold, the snow was starting back up outside, and the sun was setting on them. Newt wanted to do something familiar before starting on the mess of Francis’ zoo. 

Francis agreed.

“I’ll get together some tea and scones. You all make yourselves at home.”

When Newt was younger, his mother used to decorate their house with trinkets. In every corner of every room there were little objects that she’d found outside or picked up from bins. The end result was that Newt’s home was a cluttered, eccentric mess. Nobody ever knew where anything was or where they would even  _ look _ for things. As Dumbledore lead the two of them down the hallway, Newt was reminded of this. On the walls weren’t just battered and framed pictures that made no sense, but there were little things on the floor - old earrings, pieces of necklaces, dead flowers. Newt wasn’t entirely convinced that Francis wasn’t just like his mother and so by extension, himself. A person who loved to find things and then hold onto them regardless of their value. 

“This is all very interesting, isn’t it?” Dumbledore grunted as he pushed open their bedroom door.

Newt was a bit afraid to go in.

What greeted them wasn’t quite as terrible as the entryway. It was a bit crowded in the room, but there was space to sleep and that’s all that could feasibly be expected. 

“Will you be alright here, Newt?” Dumbledore asked him.

“I think so, yes. I could open my case here and go in for a minute. I just… I’m not entirely convinced that this room is safe. I can’t go down there if something will just follow me in.”

“I’ll be up here to keep watch. I won’t let anything down with you.”

“If it’s a creature that you’ve never seen before then it might be difficult. You mentioned he had a few house-dwelling species and I’m afraid that…”

“I promise,” Dumbledore said again, this time more gentle then before. He laid his suitcase down on the floor and closed the bedroom door, pulling out his wand and laying a film of enchantments over the wood. “I mean this honestly - I am more grateful for you than I can express. I know that it’s been a long day and you’d like to check on your children. I'll be here to make sure that nothing happens to you while you do.”

Newt laid his case down at his feet and kneeled beside it. There hadn’t ever been a time the Dumbledore had let him down, and truthfully, if there were something that the man couldn’t take then Newt never stood a chance against it anyway. Dumbledore had already proved himself to be a more powerful wizard than most. There were few people more trustworthy than him.

“Thank you. I’d like to go in for just a little bit.”

“By all means,” Dumbledore said, gesturing to the clasps that Newt was already reaching to unfasten. “One day you’ll have to take me down there.”

“I’ve already taken you down there,” Newt reminded him.

“Years ago. I imagine it’s changed a bit since then.”

Newt opened the lid and could hear the echoes of the creatures down below. It was a bit like coming home. His biggest source of pride was a charmed suitcase and yet every time he opened the lid and peered inside of it, he had no problem acknowledging that. He’d saved countless lives because of this object. He’d met a lifetime’s worth of companions within the four walls of this old case.

“It’s always changing,” Newt said quietly. 

“That it is, sometimes in the most unexpected of ways.”

Dumbledore’s expression was unreadable. He was making himself comfortable on the bed closest to Newt’s luggage. It wasn’t as if Newt had gotten used to the soft smiles or the crinkles of the man’s eyes, but the blank slate of expression was certainly new. He looked at Dumbledore for a bit too long, tilting his head as he tried to find a tell on the man’s face; a furrow of his eyebrows, a quirk of his lip, even a twitch of his nose. There wasn’t anything - just Dumbledore noticing the silence and looking back at Newt.

“Is something the matter?”

“No,” Newt answered quickly. “No, no. I’m sorry, I uhm… I’ll come back in a minute.”

“Take your time,” Dumbledore said as Newt began to climb into the mouth of the case. “I’ll be here waiting for you.”


	3. Tuesday, Week One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've extended the number of chapters because I am a terrible person and can only write in tiny chunks. :( Please bare with me even if it's slow crawling! Hahaha.

There were Doxies in the house.

Newt noticed them in the rafters as he was leaving his bedroom. They weren’t a docile pest but they were easy enough to wrangle in with a good knockback jinx, and if they were hidden around the wooden posts in the ceiling then certainly they had already filled any curtains and other warm nooks in the building. Newt needed to work on them.

“There are Doxies here,” Newt mentioned offhandedly as Dumbledore walked out behind him.

Newt hadn’t ever particularly liked Doxies. They were beasts, certainly, but venomous to humans. It was nearly impossible to coexist peacefully. He’d learned that lesson years ago and still had the small scars on his ankle to prove it. They loved to bite and each time they did, another vial of antidote knocked him on his back for half of the day. Though Newt still trapped and released them, he was much less concerned about _how_ he got them into a transportable container.

“Doxies? I haven’t had to deal with those since I was a student which, now that I mention it, was quite some years ago.”

“You’ll be forty-seven this year, right?” Newt asked innocently, bending to see up into a darker corner of the ceiling. “Or is it fifty?”

Dumbledore sputtered and then said, “I’m _ecstatic_ that you’ve got such an attention to detail. Have I ever told you?”

Newt turned to look at him and smiled at the chagrined expression on his face. “Once or twice in class, yes.”

Dumbledore laughed and walked past Newt, rubbing his shoulder fondly as he went. Newt looked down at the man’s hand as it gripped him, imagining it’s warmth penetrating the thick wool of his knitted pullover. He closed his eyes for just a second and took a deep breath, and when he opened them again Dumbledore had already wandered away, disappearing into the doorway of another room.

Newt followed behind him and appeared in the kitchen. It was warmer than the rest of the house but still noticeably cold, and Newt wondered briefly why Francis hadn’t used any magic or charms to cover the open spots in the window that were letting in the chill. As promised, there was a mug of warm water and scones in the middle of the table. There were also two empty cups with tea-bags in them ready for himself and Dumbledore. The cubes of sugar were in a tiny little dish with Nifflers painted around the circumference.

“He isn’t here,” Dumbledore said. “But I can imagine that you’d like to wait to have your cup until after you’ve gone outside to meet the creatures.”

“If we could,” Newt said. He grabbed a few sugar cubes from the dish and put them in his pocket. There were plenty of beasts that liked them. Those that didn’t would often stop to sniff or lick them out of curiosity. It was enough to extend a hand in greeting; doing so with a sweet object in his palm often granted him a lot of liberties for first meetings. “It’s still snowing outside. Should we grab our coats?”

“If you’d like. The shed isn’t far. I won’t be needing mine.”

Newt nodded and followed Dumbledore outside into the snow without it. A clear path had been made for them which lead to a dilapidated shed a few yards away. The area behind Francis’ house was actually quite large and unused. It was a blank canvas flanked on either side by a small wooded area. How they had hidden a place like this in the middle of Annecy was nothing short of a mystery, but Newt recognized the potential for habitats here. Regardless of the harsh French winters, a few simple charms and structures would have transformed the area into a useable space.

The shed was extremely neglected. Newt stopped right at the frame of the broken-in door and just watched Dumbledore’s back as it disappeared into the dark space beyond.

If he closed his eyes and listened, he could hear muted chirping and cooing beyond the barrier. The familiarity of it was like a warm blanket over his shoulders. It was every chilly morning as a child when he’d woken up to his mother calling him downstairs. He would crawl out of bed with his eyes still glued shut and stumble his way to the living room, and there she would be with her hair twisted up neatly on her head, sitting on the floor with a baby Hippogriff cradled in her arms. Newt remembered it so fondly. The owlish eyes peering at him from over her sleeves, the small wings fluttering against her chest.

This was Newt’s inheritance. This what he’d done his whole life: fall in love over and over again with things that needed him. It was okay, he told himself as he opened his eyes and took that vital step into the building, because it was what made him useful. It was what gave him purpose.

As expected, the inside of the shed was larger than the outside. Newt had barely crawled through the door when the sheer size of it overwhelmed him. Much like his own case, there was an extension charm protecting the exterior and so the walls seemed to crawl upwards forever. It was as if Newt was standing at the foot of a stage and all around him were floors of animals in their cages, desperate and angry. The smell was formidable and the sounds had increased tenfold since he’d walked in. It was every nightmare he’d ever had materialized and congested into this one building.

Newt didn’t have the presence of mind to look for Dumbledore or Francis. He walked to the first staircase he could see and anxiously climbed it to the second level. Right at the top was a cage full of Porlocks. They were beautiful creatures; Newt had learned about them in his fifth year. They were gentle but terrified of humans, and the ones trapped behind these bars looked absolutely derelict. Every one of them had clumps of dirt in their shaggy coats, and some had bald patches from irritated bites that had gone untreated.

“Oh, you poor, poor things," Newt called to them. "I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry. I'm here now." 

He yanked his wand out of his pocket and jammed it at the lock on the gate. Doing magic under duress often had unintended consequences. For Newt it was that the magic was spotty and hard to control. It took minutes to get the lock to spring and even then, his fingers were shaking so badly he couldn’t pull it off.

Newt took a deep breath. Did it do any good to think about how many animals on this floor were in similar circumstances? And what of the multiple floors? How many beasts were feeling scared and abandoned? Newt had been expelled from Hogwarts years ago and since then, had dedicated his life to the pursuit of fair treatment. As he worked his way into the dingy cage, he decided that overwhelming himself with the specifics wasn’t going to serve anyone. It was important now to focus on the creatures in front of him, and as he went down on his knees he reached into his pocket for a handful of sugar cubes. Little by little, he decided, every animal in this building was going to be taken care of.

 

* * *

 

“Newt. _Newt,_ my dear.”

Newt startled and the baby Porlock in his arms did the same. The bottle that he’d been holding jostled it’s way out of the creature's mouth and immediately after, the baby itself wiggled free of Newt’s grip and ran to join its herd on the other side of the room. Newt looked down at his empty lap and said, “I’m sorry, I was just finishing the feeding. This one’s already eaten, but she came back to eat a bit more.”

“Oh, I understand the feeling entirely.”

Newt squinted his eyes and looked around himself. He’d managed to extend the room and clean the exhibit, adding small den-like structures so that the Porlocks could hide. There were grass patches and hay piles, and the babies had been bottle-fed a cocktail of nutrients. The essentials had been taken care of.

“It’s missing something,” Newt whispered to himself.

“Perhaps this,” Dumbledore said. He pulled his wand out of his pocket and pointed it towards the ceiling, winding his hand in a motion that Newt wasn’t familiar with. Moments later, small clouds began to form over their heads and the night sky appeared above them. The speckle of stars and the moon were the sign of an accomplished wizard. It was a difficult enchantment.

“I wish I’d learned to do it,” Newt lamented.

“None of the creatures in your case are actually outside,” Dumbledore reminded him. “So what does it say when your old professor can enchant ceilings but doesn’t have the capacity to charm entire habitats? I think you’ve surpassed me.”

“Yes,” Newt said playfully as he turned to smile at Dumbledore. “I think I have.”

Dumbledore grinned and his eyes were twinkling. He walked over to Newt and stretched out his hands; Newt took them without a second thought and used them to pull himself to his feet. It was such a cold night and Newt was exhausted. He hadn’t slept since they’d left the boat and the lethargy was finally settling in. He wanted to lay his head down and close his eyes, and now that the cage had turned into a small patch of the outdoors, Newt could easily see himself crawling into one of the makeshift dens and curling up to one of the babies, falling asleep.

“I have an idea. How about we save the cup of tea for another night and sleep now,” Dumbledore suggested. He was still holding Newt’s hands with his warm palms. He raised his eyebrows and continued, “And not that you would know anything about it, but Francis seems to be out of sugar cubes, too. It’d be a travesty to drink tea without them.”

“I didn’t…” Newt began, but then he thought back to his full pockets and the number of times he’d conjured sugar cubes from the kitchen. “Yes. Right. Another night is perfectly fine.”

The walk back to the house was quiet. The snow hadn’t stopped and the night was in full effect. Newt wrapped his arms around himself and looked out at the field around them. It looked like the Hogwarts grounds at Christmas; peaceful and unbothered before the students returned to school. There were small imprints from creatures scampering along to the forest and as Newt tromped along behind Dumbledore, crushing the new snow beneath his boots, he thought about the animal that had made them. Was it a rabbit? Or perhaps a Jarvey, the little beast responsible for his expulsion in his fifth year. It could have been anything and all the same, it would have been looking for a place to stay warm so that it could sleep out the winter in peace.

The cottage was much more welcoming now that Newt had seen the shed. He walked into the kitchen where Francis was waiting with his head on the table, looking haggard and blue. When he saw them enter, he jumped up awkwardly out of his seat and rubbed his hands together.

“Hello, Newt. I didn’t see you go into the shed but Dumbledore told me you’d already started working. I thought it best to leave you alone.”

“I prefer to work by myself,” Newt confirmed shortly. “Thank you.”

He couldn’t bring himself to actually look at Francis. There were still residual frustrations about the state of the animals stuck under his skin. Despite his demeanor, he wasn't happy about any of it.

“Well if there’s anything you need, please,” Francis said.

“There is. You could compile a list of all of your creatures. It would make preparing for tomorrow significantly easier,” Newt told him. He looked down at his mess of a sweater and realized that his work with the Porlocks had sullied his clothing. As an aside, he added, “also, a bath would be nice.”

Francis jerked as if he’d been electrocuted. He was already moving for the door as he said, “By god, I’m a dreadful host. I hadn’t even thought about it! I can go and draw one quickly. It won’t take a minute.”

Dumbledore waited patiently for the man to clear the room before he said jovially, “You’re worrying him.”

"You're joking," Newt responded sharply. "What have I done? I don’t mean to.”

“Oh no, by all means. Please do. I need to speak with him about something private and I doubt he’ll be focused on me after dealing with you.”

“It can't be that bad,” Newt said. He unfolded his arms self-consciously but then struggled with where to put his hands. After a moment’s hesitation, he stuck them in his pockets and turned around, heading to the bedroom so that he could peel out of his messy clothing. Dumbledore’s tinkering laugh followed him as he went. The man was frustratingly clever. Newt wasn't sure whether or not he'd actually made Francis feel apologetic for what he'd done, but he was thinking about it the entire trek back to his room, and then again as he was gathering his things for his bath. What did Dumbledore want for him to do? Smile and act like the state of the creatures outside was okay? His affinity for confrontation wasn't strong enough to come out and ask  _how_ things had gone so sour, but he wasn't particularly surprised that it manifested in his body language.

When Dumbledore waltzed into the room twenty minutes later, Newt was sitting on his bed looking down at his lap. 

"You've not bathed," Dumbledore noted. He put one hand on his hip and leaned on the door handle with the other. "Why?"

"Was I terribly rude?" Newt asked.

"You were downright menacing," Dumbledore clarified. Newt raised his eyebrows and Dumbledore quickly amended, "Rightfully so. I'm of the firm belief that whatever the explanation for ones' actions, it doesn't excuse the consequences of them. I... understand the reasons behind Francis' negligence and yet can not excuse it, because to do so would belittle the struggle of every creature in that shed."

"It's just... the state of those creatures was unforgiveable. With only two weeks, what can I do?"

"What have you already done?"

"It feels like nothing."

"And yet is something," Dumbledore sighed. He walked over to where Newt was sitting on the bed and joined him. He laid one hand gingerly on Newt's knee and squeezed comfortingly. "We have tomorrow. And tomorrow's tomorrow. You've not slept or eaten since we climbed off the boat and yet you've somehow fed an entire family or Porlocks and cleaned their exhibit. You are a marvelous man, Newt Scamander, and I've no doubt that within two weeks every creature in that shed will have been seen to." 

Newt would always be shaken by Dumbledore's faith in him. When in his fifth year he'd gotten a notice that he was being expelled, he'd run to Dumbledore's office with it and the first thing the man had said was  _there must be some mistake._ Against every one of Newt's expectations, the man hadn't paused to consider that maybe, just maybe, Newt had overstepped his boundaries for once and done something worth getting expelled for. Dumbledore had jumped up irritatedly from his desk and snatched the note from Newt's hands, and then he'd stormed his way to the headmaster's office to cause a rucus about the unjust treatment ofgood students.

"You have so much trust in me," Newt said.

"Because I know you," Dumbledore responded gently. "And I can't believe that you'd break it. Now, I think it's time you took a bath. You've got..." he trailed off as he considered the large stain on Newt's pullover.

"One of the babies regurgitated earlier."

"Ah," Dumbledore nodded his head slowly and looked up at the cieling, a smirk already tugging at the corner of his lips. "Sick all over you."

If Newt were sat down at a table and told to write what he wanted to do in life, the words 'be useful' would be scribbled in large print right at the top of the paper. He was so wholly unbothered by having his clothes ruined, his hair pulled, his knuckles bruised as long as he was being helpful. Others were exhausted by it. He was always finding himself way in over his head, struggling with a situation that might have been better left untouched. But this was an inherent quality that he couldn't shake.

When he was needed and when he was useful, Newt was quite possibly the happiest person in the world. 

 

* * *

 

Dumbledore's bed was empty when Newt awoke in the morning. The only evidence that the man had been in the room at all was a note left on the pillow that read:

 

_My dearest Newton,_

_Please start on the shed this morning without me. I apologize that I won't be there to help you at the moment, but I'll be back shortly. I wouldn't dare return without croissants.The list attached to this note are all of the creatures that Francis has logged in his shed. You won't see much of him today either, as he's with me in town taking care of an urgent matter. If any creatures seem too daunting to handle alone (and I highly, highly doubt YOU of all people will find one), you need only await my return and we will work on it together. ~~Should you get into trouble in my absence~~ Please, for the love of Merlin, avoid trouble in my absence._

_Yours sincerely,_

_Albus_

Newt flipped the note over so that he could see the list underneath. It looked like a stream of consciousness, disorganized and difficult to read but still useful. Francis had Erumpets, Runespoors, Puffskeins, Grindylows, Augureys, Bowtruckles, Mooncalves, Occamies, and Porlocks. There were also more dangerous creatures in the woods surrounding the shed. Werewolves, Graphorns, and Thestrals.

Reading the list, It was as if something suddenly became clear to him: that there were few beasts he could encounter which he  _wouldn't_ be equipped to handle. It was a comforting revelation. He folded Dumbledore's note neatly and stuck it in his pocket. If Dumbledore and Francis weren't returning for a few hours, he was going to use that time to peacefully organize the things he needed to handle the crowd of creatures in the shed, encouraged by the fact that he could likely find some trouble to get into while he was down there.


	4. Wednesday, Week One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing this while flying from Dublin to Reykjavik! God, the holidays have been long! hahaha. xx

Newt couldn’t feel his fingers, though he suspected that it had more to do with the baby Occamy chewing on them then the temperature.

  
Fixing the insulation of the shed had been the easiest part of the morning. A few charms around the border, a few more charms over the cracks in the walls and within an hour, Newt could comfortably remove his coat without shivering half to death. He worked in the Occamy exhibit with his coat folded neatly beneath his knees, tying off bundles of sticks with his wand so that his little, blue friends had somewhere comfortable to sleep throughout the day.

Newt had also found a gramophone down in the lobby that he’d borrowed and turned on. It played softly in the corner of their room. The label read _Billie Holiday_ and the creatures seemed to like her music because three of the four Occamy babies had huddled around the turntable and were watching the disk go in circles. Only one Occamy’s attention wasn’t swindled by the music player. Richard - the smallest and perhaps bravest of the bunch who was much more fascinated by Newt and the skin of his fingertips.

"Richard, I think you’re teething,” Newt said as a tiny Occamy tromped circles around him happily, stopping every now and then to lick at the fabric of his pants. Newt laid the last of the Occamy nests aside and stood up unsteadily, wiping his dusty knees off. “Would you like to help me clean up around your mum?”

Newt tugged his wand out of his pocket and raised the volume on the gramophone. Then he reached down and picked Richard up, setting the creature on his shoulder.

There was a list of tasks that Newt had given himself and he’d written them down on a small piece of paper. The basics of the Occamy exhibit had already been taken care of. The babies were up off of the messy floor, the mother was sleeping off a cold in the corner of the room, and now that Newt had spent some time with the bundles of sticks scattered around him, there were enough nests for them to use once he’d left. Newt reached into his pocket and pulled out his note, looking down at the remaining things to accomplish. With his wand in hand, he scratched out the completed tasks and found a fairly simple list remaining:

  1. ~~Feed the babies.~~
  2. ~~Give the mother a cocktail for illness.~~
  3. Gather bugs for future feeding.
  4. ~~Collect sticks and make nests.~~
  5. ~~Warm up the room.~~
  6. ~~Name the babies.~~
  7. Charm the ceiling.
  8. ~~Remove undesirable items from the room.~~
  9. Give the mother a second dose.



He had every intention of clearing the list and started on the remaining three items so that he could move onto the next set of creatures.

Dumbledore and Francis were still missing. Well, they weren’t missing, Newt reminded himself. They were in town taking care of _urgent matters_. Whatever that meant. Dumbledore had always managed to nudge Newt’s curiosity. He’d done it quite often as a professor and apparently, that trait hadn’t vanished with time or distance. Newt had spent all morning in passive thought about the man’s whereabouts and if everything was alright. If Dumbledore was on the case, certainly it would be. The man never seemed to stumble on a situation he couldn’t handle with grace and ease. He slipped into conflict like he was invisible, and once resolved, found himself on the other side of the looking glass unscathed. Newt had always, always admired that about Dumbledore. His control and his resolute approach to situations that needed repairing.

God, Newt spent a lot of time thinking about Dumbledore these days.

With a shake of his head, he started on his tasks with more energy. He finished the list quickly and then tucked all of the Occamies into their own nests so that by the morning they would be happily nestled into their new homes. They were more peaceful now that they were happy; chirping and fluttering their beautiful purple wings as Newt tucked them into their beds. The mother was on the mend, however slowly the process was, and as Newt raised his wand to put up barriers around the exhibit so that he could control the temperature, Richard woke up and began to lick at the shell of his ear.

“Oh, stop it, you,” Newt laughed, tucking his head down against his shoulder and effectively cutting off Richard’s access to his earlobe. “I’m taking care of you.”

This time the enchanted ceiling was a bit different. Newt had only learned the spell in the evening before and so he made sure that there were no clouds (he hadn't been able to reproduce the hand motions for them). He moved constellations above his head and set a moon in the distant corner of the sky, casting a glow over all of them that had a few of the babies yawning loudly behind him. It was only just afternoon outside, a few hours from the evening, but there weren’t any windows in this corner of the shed and so it didn’t matter much. He could play with his magic and build up an ideal atmosphere. He wanted the babies to rest.

Newt had become so invested in shifting the stars in his sky that the voice humming along to the gramophone didn’t process. He heard it only when the man started to sing.

“ _Y_ _ou'll get bored. You can't resist him, and all you'll say when you have kissed him is ~ o_ _oh, what a little Moonlight can do...”_

“You know her,” Newt said, watching as Dumbledore waltzed into the room. “You know everybody.”

“Not everybody,” Dumbledore admitted, already removing his hat as he spoke. He winked when he said, “but I’m working on it.” He removed his wand almost casually from his pocket, shifting the moon over a bit so that the beams of light laid gracefully over the body of the sleeping mother. “You’ve done a marvelous job of this room, as suspected.”

“I hope so. Richard seems to like it.”

“I take it this young boy is Richard?” Dumbledore asked as he reached out and offered his finger to the Occamy perched on Newt’s shoulder. Richard considered the finger, tilting his head this way and that, before reaching out and chomping on it. Dumbledore didn’t recoil, he didn’t even flinch, he just huffed out a laugh, eyes crinkling in a way that made Newt want to stare at him forever. “A gorgeous creature.”

“I’m sorry, he’s teething,” Newt said belatedly, reaching up to grab Richard from his shoulder. He held the baby safely in his arms and offered up his own finger instead.

“It’s alright. Who are the others?”

“Hamlet, Henry, and Cleopatra.”

“Hamlet? My god. I had  _no idea_ that you read muggle literature.”

Dumbledore was lying. Of course he knew that Newt had a soft spot for muggle literature. In fact, he’d only become fascinated with Shakespeare after seeing a book propped up on the shelf in Dumbledore’s office years ago, and he'd asked to borrow it out of curiosity. That had been the beginning of it. As per usual, his interests were to Dumbledore's credit. “The language is a bit superfluous, but the stories are entertaining.”

“ _S_ _uperfluous?_ The audacity - using that word in criticism no less,” Dumbledore chortled. “You are… something special, Newt Scamander. Have I ever told you?”

“Once or twice in class,” Newt said. The tug of a smile still hadn’t left his face. He felt like a parrot, always saying what had happened between them at Hogwarts. It was impossible to avoid. Dumbledore had been responsible for so much of who Newt was as a man, and that was quickly becoming obvious. “Is everything alright?”

“Shouldn’t it be?” Dumbledore asked, surprised by the lack of transition.

“I only mean that… this morning, you…” Newt noticed Dumbledore’s raised eyebrows and realized what he’d been about to ask. He promptly stopped himself and said, “it’s nothing.”

“If you have something you’d like to ask me, please don’t hesitate. You’ve a right to assuage your curiosities. I’ll always answer within reason.”

Newt wanted to ask where Dumbledore had gone to, but it seemed so inappropriate. There wasn’t any reason for Newt to know the man’s errands. It was a bit of an invasive request, honestly. Newt turned away from the man and looked back up at the moon. It looked like a large balloon, something that could be popped or otherwise pulled right out of the sky and dragged around on a string. Newt said it out loud and Dumbledore just laughed behind him, distracted or just unwilling to press the question that Newt no longer wanted an answer to.

“I've always thought something similar," Then after a short pause, "I’d like to eat lunch with you if that’s alright.”

“It’s still lunchtime?”

“Somewhere in the world,” Dumbledore told him, amused. “I bought you something from in town. Also, I'd like to speak with you about your impeccable spellwork.” As if to make a point, he looked upward with raised eyebrows towards the cieling.

That grabbed Newt’s attention. He’d planned to eat alone and then start the Mooncalf exhibit. Shortly thereafter he’d changed the plans to exclude lunch and just work on the Mooncalf exhibit. Now he found himself rewriting his itinerary a third time, trying to convince himself that the excitement of eating lunch with Dumbledore was more about the necessity of food then the opportunity to spend time with one of his favorite people in the world. Afterward, he’d work on the Mooncalf exhibit.

 

* * *

 

The day went by slowly.

After lunch, Newt reapproached the shed with a new list. Dumbledore cleaned the kitchen. Francis was nowhere to be seen.

When the two of them saw each other again, Newt had managed to wrangle in all of the errant mooncalves and familiarize himself with them. He was sitting on a mountain of newspapers that had been shredded by his anxious new friends, and he was releasing mooncalf pellets into the air, watching them float into hungry and waiting mouths.

“Have you bewitched the pellets?” Dumbledore asked.

Newt looked over at him. The man had his trousers pulled up over his ankles. His waistcoat and rolled up sleeves meant that he was prepared for dirty work. His hair was pushed back out of his face, thin but prominent lines of gray streaking through the otherwise brown coif. He walked with his hands in his pockets and his steps were wide and confident. He was _so_ handsome.

Newt bit his lip and willed himself to stop thinking irresponsibly. When Dumbledore was within reach, he grabbed a handful of pellets from his pocket and held them out. “It keeps them active. They like to chase them. If you’d like to feed them for me while I begin landscaping, it would be appreciated.”

Dumbledore took the food without question and began the process of charming it.

In the brief silence that followed, Newt found himself opening the lid of his case. He felt a bit negligent; it’d been a few days since he’d sat down and spent time with Pickett. Stepping into the mouth of his suitcase was much like walking into his own home, where at the bottom of the stairs, Nick and Nellie (his gorgeous baby Nifflers) were waiting for him expectantly, watching him descend. It was so familiar and so warm. He touched ground and looked around his workshop, door to his exhibits wide open and Jasper the mooncalf peeking his large eyes in the gap.

“You’re supposed to be burrowed, Jasper,” Newt warned him. “You’ll be ill if you don’t go back in there and go to sleep, and then you’ll be bleeting at me to help you.”

Jasper dipped his head sadly and then disappeared from the crack. Newt made a mental note to slip down here later and check on him. The poor thing had always been a bit anxious.

Throwing supplies into a bag from the supply cabinet was quick work. He left two small snacks for the Nifflers out on the counter of his workstation and then hauled his load carefully back up the ladder. When he resurfaced, Dumbledore was standing there with a shoddy piece of paper between his fingers. It was Newt’s list for the exhibit.

“This is an impressive list.”

“I tend to forget things quickly,” Newt huffed as he tossed his bag out onto the floor, readying himself to crawl out. Dumbledore moved to help him, extending his hand and waiting for Newt to take it. Newt reached out timidly but accepted the proffered hand firmly and allowed himself to be pulled up.

“The recipe on the bottom is for…”

“Eyedrops.”

“Eyedrops?” Dumbledore asked.

“Mooncalves should only be out of burrow for the full moon or, in severe cases, cleaning. They’re easily drained of energy if they are found in sunlight because their eyes are susceptible to certain UV rays. Since they’re allergic to cedar and wormwood, I assume they’re allergic to many types of trees and so am trying to stick to aromatics as I formulate a new… a new… eyedrop to repair the - the damage. I’m sorry,” Newt paused, realizing that he was two seconds off from telling _Dumbledore_ of all people the properties of Mooncalf eyes.

"My darling, you are... phenomenal,” Dumbledore said seriously, looking up from the paper. Newt's body reacted immediately to the words, cheeks going warm and pink, stomach fluttering as he caught the glint in the man's eyes.  What was it? Awe? Mischief? No, it was something new and unexplainable that Newt's instinct was to shy away from. He maintained, watching, waiting for the man to carry on. Eventually, all that came out was a quiet, “And the note about the pool?”

“Pool?” Newt asked. His brain was completely blank. “Pool…”

Dumbledore held out the paper helpfully. “Number three. _Remove the pool._ ”

The pool. Right. Mooncalves can’t swim. Newt swallowed around his embarrassment, cheeks just getting redder and redder, and said, “They can’t swim. The pool in the corner is too deep.”

“Ah.”

Dumbledore was relentless. He tugged his wand from a small holster in his pants and waved in the direction of the pool. Immediately, the water cleared from the basin and in its place, a patch of large dandelions sprung to life. The mooncalves considered it as a collective. They tilted their heads curiously and then one brave baby trotted towards it.

“They like Dandelions, no?” Dumbledore asked.

“How did you…” Newt started, stunned by the transfiguration. Water was a very basic component of transfiguration, and no matter how cruel it seemed, perhaps the most difficult to work with. Turning a body of water to a field of flowers was something Newt couldn’t do. “The flowers.”

“I’ve been told I’m a decent wizard,” Dumbledore said cheekily. He was smiling when Newt looked over at him. “And I know a thing or two about creatures. Now come on, we’ve got a list to finish.”

Newt and Dumbledore worked around each other for the rest of the evening. It was fairly quiet and by the time they left the shed, the real moon was high in the sky, shimmering out over the snowy grounds of Francis’ land. The trees on either side of them were covered in it. Newt seldom traveled to places that were cold and doused in winter, but he appreciated the look of an outside that was covered in untouched snow.

“Do you like the winter?” Newt asked.

“I’m not partial to it, no,” Dumbledore admitted, “It’s the quietest time of year.”

“Do you think so?” It seemed that a lot of things happened in the winter.

“My summers tend to be quite… noisy,” The wind started to blow and Dumbledore slowed to a stop, looking over at the treeline beside them. He was standing with his hands in his pockets, falling back into quiet thought. After a moment he asked, “Do you recall your seventeenth birthday, Newt?”

“It’s hard to forget,” Newt responded. Truly, he had been at his most unobservant during that year of his life. He'd fallen into all sorts of trouble that Dumbledore had inevitably pulled him out of, but his seventeenth birthday was... well.

Dumbledore didn’t ask a follow-up question. He stared for a long while at the trees and let the snow land on his face, in his hair, all over his shoulders. Newt was cold but he didn’t want to move, and so he stood there too, looking between the treeline and Dumbledore’s still, peaceful figure beside him. Ten chilly minutes passed before the man smiled over his shoulder. “I’m terribly sorry to have kept you. I was just thinking about something.”

“What were you thinking about?”

“You.”

Newt had felt frozen before, but it was obvious that he could go more stiff, more quiet. Perhaps he’d misheard. “ _Me?”_

“Yes. I’ve been doing that a lot these days.”

Newt wasn’t particularly good at social interaction. In fact, while at Hogwarts, he’d spent long hours locked in his room with a mirror, trying to work out how to smile and chat because he could never quite figure out how to say the right thing or look the right way. He thought that maybe throughout his adulthood he might grow into it, but just a phrase from Dumbledore’s mouth and it felt like he was back to square one. A teenager out of his element who only wanted friends but had no clue how to attain them, or what to say to make them stay. What was he supposed to do? What were the words that Dumbledore wanted to hear?

Before he could draw back into himself out of anxiety, Dumbledore turned and jerked his head at the house. "We should go inside. I don't want for you to freeze."

And just like that, the spell of questions was broken. Newt stopped thinking about responses and  _why_ 's and just followed the man back towards the house with his hands in his pockets. 

Maybe tomorrow he could ask Dumbledore what he meant.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes! I've already got the next chapter up and running. I'm sorry for the delay! The next chapter should be up within the next few days (granted that I sleep off New Years in a decent time). What are we gonna accomplish? Finally dragging Grindelwald in, finally doing some sort of kiss (?), finally extending the length of what I upload by about 2000-3000 words.


	5. Thursday: Week One

The underbrush in the Forbidden Forest had always been thick.

Newt knew that it was a place to find unicorn hair, but on the third time scratching his cheeks in an attempt to grab a bundle off of the branches, he was convinced that there was an easier way to go about this form of collection. He shoved his pockets full of glowing balls of knotted strands, and when he stood up they felt heavy in his robe.

The walk back to the castle was a dark and lonely trek. There was a thin layer of frost on the dead leaves around him, and every time he stepped his toes grew colder and colder. Newt never thought much about winter; it hardly ever snowed but inside of the forest, it grew cold enough to freeze any water that managed to hide within the trees. He should have worn a coat or one of his thicker, outdoor robes. Instead, he was shivering inside of his dormitory robes, pockets full to bursting with bundles of unicorn hair.

“I shouldn’t do this again,” Newt told himself firmly. He wrapped his arms tighter around himself and rubbed his shoulders, walking into a clearing, completely unaware of his surroundings.

He’d thought he was alone. The forest was full of animals and creatures, yes, but few stayed so close to the edge. Caution, Dumbledore always told him. Vigilant caution.

And yet here he was, skirting into a large, open area with his eyes on the ground.

“And who might you be, wandering around our wood this time of night?”

Newt gasped and spun around. He’d made it midway through the clearing but found himself exposed, vulnerable, right in the center. Approaching him was quite a large herd of centaurs, atleast twelve. Newt wasn’t a large boy - he was smaller then most of his class, but he’d never felt so dwarfed by another’s company as he did right now. He’d known he was in trouble the second he felt a tight grip on his hood, tugging up and effectively holding him in place.

“In this weather, no less,” a female centaur countered. “You’d like to freeze to death, it seems.”

Newt looked up briefly at the hand holding his hood. The female centaur had been right; though the forest was dense and no snow had fallen through to the ground, the air was still biting. Newt couldn’t feel his ears, and his hands were tingling from the temperature. If he stayed out here too long, the nurse was going to have to give him something for the frostbite.

“What’s your name?” The first centaur asked.

“Newton Scamander,” Newt answered nervously. “And I’m sorry to have come into your home like this. I’m only looking for bundles of unicorn hair.”

The female centaur trotted close to him. She was beautiful. Her hair was long but not unkempt and her upper body was covered in a light layer of spines that formed a cover for her chest. When she spoke, her voice was deep and striking.

“The audacity of wizards. What you need, you take.”

“I d-don’t want to disturb the forest. I just n-need the - the…” Newt’s vision began to swim. He had good intentions. If only his timidity would allow him to argue for them. He squeezed his eyes shut and said firmly, “Please let me go.”

To his surprise, the grip on his hood released. He fell to his knees and heaved into the dirt with panic finally gripping his chest. He didn’t look up, but he could hear the female centaurs voice echoing in the damp and wet wood around him.

“Go back to Hogwarts,” She said. “And when the urge strikes again to come and take from the forest, be mindful of who you might disturb in the process. They may not be so kind.”

Newt couldn’t ever forget the smell of frozen earth beneath his nose. The sound of trotting hooves as the centaurs left him on the ground with his legs shaking beneath his thin robes. The minutes dripped by and Newt laid there alone with two feet in his thoughts. It was as if the realization had never taken until now; the awareness that all around him were dangerous things, and many of them wouldn't hesitate to kill him. The panic of being surrounded by such _large, unhappy_ creatures, and the reality that at any point, they might have hurt and left him here and nobody would have found him. Nobody knew where he was.

It wasn’t until Dumbledore called out for him that he realized some time had passed.

“Newt!”

He’d known then that he was in trouble.

“Newton!”

A terrified teacher who had let his student sneak out again from under his nose.

“ _Lumos Maxima_!”

The entire clearing around him was swathed in light and Newt sobbed against his arm. He was in trouble and now he couldn’t even hide or shy away from it. Dumbledore ran over to him and rolled him onto his back. His eyes were creased with worry as he asked, “Oh, for _God's SAKE_ , Newt. Are you alright?”

“Yes.”

“You’re not hurt?”

“N-no.”

"Nothing bleeding or otherwise missing?"

"No."

“Newt! You can’t do this. _You can’t do this_.”

Newt didn’t respond. He squeezed his eyes shut and cried a bit more, and Dumbledore sighed, though whether it was in disappointment or relief was yet to be told.

“I’m s-sorry t-t-to…” Newt chattered through his teeth. His body was so cold it was itching.

“You’re freezing. Take this,” Dumbledore said. His voice had lost the tremble of panic now that he’d seen that Newt wasn’t dead and he had returned to his normal self. He flicked his wand and the light went out. He flicked it a second time and suddenly warm air was streaming from the tip. He handed it to Newt and then wound his arm around Newt’s body, helping him stand. “Not many people spend their seventeenth birthdays testing the constraints of their mortality. If you’d come to me and asked what you might do for celebration, I’d have suggested cupcakes.”

Newt hiccoughed then, and Dumbledore laughed, his light, tinkling voice cutting through the frosty air.

* * *

 

Newt woke up on the trails of his dreams. The bed beside him was empty again, though this time the sheets were bundled together and ruffled in a way that proved Dumbledore had atleast climbed into it at some point.

Newt pushed back the covers and climbed out of bed slowly. He was wearing socks that were too big, swimming in Pyjamas that fit on his body like a large blanket. Cotton. A gift from his father many years ago that he’d never quite grown into. A lot of Newt’s life was a bit like that, too big to comfortably fit into and yet wearing it anyway.

There were few places that Newt could imagine Dumbledore standing this early in the morning. It was so cold that it seemed almost crazy to be outside, and yet when Newt sauntered into the kitchen with his arms crossed cozily over his chest, he noticed the man’s coat and shoes missing from beside the back door. Newt smiled to himself and wrote another quick, mental reminder to stop with the expectations. He wasted no time slipping his feet into his boots and climbing into his too-thin coat. His hand hovered over his scarf, dangling from one of the back hooks, and he eventually yanked it off and wound it around his neck.

When he pulled open the back door cautiously and peered outside, the snow had started up again. It was as if the fresh coat was sucking the sound out of the world. There was no wind, no chirping, no rustling of branches. It wasn’t a desolate place and yet it felt a bit like everything had gone to sleep for the winter with no quick plans to wake up. The moonlight was bright and casting everything in soft, blue light and it was beautiful. Newt stepped outside, feeling the give of the snow beneath his boots.

“Newt,” Dumbledore called. The man was leaning against the back of the house just a few steps away.

“I thought I’d come and check on you,” Newt said quietly. It almost seemed irresponsible to speak in such a quiet place. With just a small amount of hesitation, he went to Dumbledore’s side. “You weren’t in bed.”

“I usually wake up at this time.”

“I can see why,” Newt admitted. He had never been a particularly early riser. His mother could never get him out of bed on the first attempt. He briefly considered that if he’d had this to wake up to every morning he might have found the motivation to open his eyes and unearth himself from his blankets, but then he shivered and wrapped his arms more tightly around his body and banished the thought from his mind completely.

“A better disguise than the books.”

“For thinking?”

“For thinking,” Dumbledore clarified easily.

Newt thought back on his dream. It’d been so long since he’d revisited that night in the Forbidden Forrest, and as he blinked at the large, white field in front of him, surrounded by woods and with just one, looming shack in the distance, the memories he’d neglected to revisit seemed to spring to life. Once again he was here in the middle of winter with Dumbledore at his side, though this time it felt different. There was no immediate danger. They were both seemingly well. But he wondered if perhaps this time there was a shift; though Dumbledore wouldn’t ever admit it, and perhaps there was an unseen trouble. A magnificent danger on the skyline that was leading to all of the quiet moments, the thinking, the sneaking out before daybreak. It all meant _something_.

“I think about you, too. All of the time.”

The ruffle of Dumbledore’s coat was palpable. Newt could see the man shifting in his peripheral vision, but he couldn’t look. It was too embarrassing. He bit his lip and waited for a question or an admonishment that never came, and eventually, all Dumbledore could say was, “I feel like a selfish man, stealing your attention from more important things.”

“There are few more important things.”

“Oh, _Newt,_ you can’t think that,” Dumbledore laughed. It was the same old laugh, like bells, fitting of a man with so much wisdom. Back then in the Forbidden Forrest, with Dumbeldore’s arm wound around him like a bandage, his tinkling chuckle covering them both like a Patronus. It was the very same.

Maybe Dumbledore didn’t understand because he _couldn’t_ understand. Newt had never laughed like that.

“The snow is dancing, Dumbledore,” Newt breathed as he tilted his head skyward and let the snowflakes fall onto his nose. “Do you remember that you used to play that piece in class while we worked? I remember what you said. You told us, ‘For this alone, Muggles are not and could not ever be, lesser.’”  
  
“I remember,” Dumbledore responded.  
  
When Newt opened his eyes, Dumbledore had turned to him and was staring with an intensity that had only ever been reserved for his most powerful magic. His eyes were focused and Newt couldn’t look away. He wanted to; everything in his nature told him not to set the challenge, but it felt right. It felt okay. For a confusing second, Dumbledore took a step forward and reached out, taking Newt’s jaw between his hands. And then between one breath and the next, the man leaned in and kissed him.

Newt’s heart stopped in his chest.

And then it started beating, fast and hard, against his ribcage and his eyes fluttered closed. Dumbledore’s lips were a warm pressure against his own and it had been so long since he’d kissed someone that he’d almost forgotten how to do it. He needed to dig for that memory of what was right and what was wrong, and while he searched, Dumbledore tilted his head and breathed out deeply, pulling back.

“No…” Newt begged. He was only a second away from getting it right.

Dumbledore smiled down at him and, with his fingers still gripping Newt’s face, guided him back in for a second kiss. This time, Newt melted into it. He breathed in the scent of Dumbledore’s cologne, he reveled in the warmth of the man’s lips, he pressed himself bodily against Dumbledore’s chest and lips press hungrily against the man's very own in a dance he hadn’t done in years. It felt right. He knew, without question, that the moment he’d walked back into Dumbledore’s classroom, it would come to this.

The two of them stood still in the snow until their ears went cold and their noses were frozen. Even then, Newt struggled to pull himself away from Dumbledore’s embrace. He shifted from one foot to the other in the hopes of bringing his toes back to life, and it was noticeable enough for Dumbledore to pull away stoically.

“Forgive me. I’ve only just noticed how cold it is out here. You must be freezing.”

“It’s been cold for a while,” Newt reminded him. “And I’ve been out here regardless.”

“You sweet, sweet boy," Dumbledore smiled. "I've kept you too long. Let’s go inside and get some sleep." He reached out and wiped one of Newt’s strawberry blonde curls from his forehead, tucking it back into line. “I won’t be here when you wake.”

“Is there something wrong?”

Dumbledore paused and opened his mouth to speak, but decided better of it and shook his head. “I didn’t want for you to think that I’d left you alone.”

Newt wouldn’t have thought that in a million years, but he smiled down at the snow beneath them and let it go. Dumbledore was a man of many words, but Newt could have spent hours trying to decipher all the things he’d ever heard come out of that gorgeous mouth and still be no closer to the truth. The man had lived an entire life aside of Newt, and there was so much left that he had to figure out. He could give Dumbledore some time. Maybe one day they could sit down over a cup and talk about it all.

Until then, he could wait.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not the update you deserve AT ALL. It was supposed to be longer, but because of the traveling and jetlag, I couldn't make it happen. I had to put the break in there otherwise it was never going to be uploaded. I'm so sorry, please don't trust anything that comes out of my mouth in terms of what to expect next chapter! I guess Grindelwald didn't want to make himself known this time around, but he's definitely about to slip in here soon. Also, the slowest going fic in the history of fic, I'll likely update the number of chapters.


	6. Friday, Week One

Grindylows were tricky creatures. They weren’t pets by any stretch of the imagination. While their nature made it nearly impossible to domesticate them, they were often kept around by witches and wizards needing their sturdy little fingers for cleaning or gripping. They weren’t lethal unless one was underwater with a horde of them, but as Newt stuck his hand into the murky water of an old and dirty tank, he remembered that they were still quite vicious creatures.

His fingertips had barely touched the bottom of the container when something gripped his wrist, wrapped itself tightly around, and chomped on his forearm.

“ _Ouch!_ ” Newt yelled, yanking his arm from the water on impulse. He should have known that there would be Grindylows in the tank. He whipped his wand from his pocket and pointed it at his wrist, stunning the creature with a repulsion jinx and knocking it back into the water, but the damage to his skin had been done. A line of small holes had punctured his arm and was now bleeding heavily, dripping down onto the battered wood of the floor.

He needed to clean and bandage himself quickly. The water was so filthy that it was certainly dangerous for open wounds. As Newt supported his arm and walked back to the house, red ringlets of blood spattered on the snow along the way. He picked up a handful of it and laid it over his forearm, melting it down to water and wiping it off so that he wouldn’t make a mess of Francis’ house.

Dumbledore had just returned from his day in town and was standing in the kitchen, waving his wand at a handful of dirty dishes when Newt nudged open the back door with his foot and made a beeline for the bedroom.

“Good morning, Newt,” Dumbledore said casually as the man all but ran past him. There was a one-second gap between the greeting and the distraught, “What’s _happened_ to you?” that Newt steadfastly ignored. He had a salve in his case. It was better to patch himself up and then convince Dumbledore that it was nothing. He’d quickly fix his arm and then he could…

“NEWT.”

Newt startled and paused, turning around in time to watch Dumbledore stalk his way over, wand already in his hand.

“Yes…”

“What _happened_. Please, tell me.”

“I… I stuck my hand in a Grindylow tank.”

“Oh, for…” Dumbledore rolled his eyes and took Newt’s wrist in his hand. The man’s skin was soft and warm, and Newt tried not to look too affected by how his small body looked cradled in Dumbledore’s strong, gorgeous hands. He could feel his cheeks warming up, though he wasn’t sure whether he was more embarrassed or… attracted to their current predicament. The man in front of him wasted no time tapping Newt’s wrist with his wand, muttering an incantation that made Newt’s wrist burn, and Newt gasped, yanking his arm back and blowing on it.

“It hurts!” Newt yelled.

“I’m sorry, but certainly the small row of teeth that punctured your arm couldn’t have felt much better,” Dumbledore responded patiently. He reached out a second time and took Newt’s hand again, counteracting the effects of the first incantation with another brief tap of his wand. “I worry about you Newt.”

“You don’t need to.”

“Oh?”

As if to make a point, Dumbledore looked down at Newt’s hand in his own.

“I wasn’t thinking clearly. It doesn’t… it doesn’t happen often.”

Dumbledore didn’t say anything. He stuck his wand in his pocket and then took Newt’s jaw between his fingers, leaning in and looking him in his eyes. Newt tilted his head towards the ground to try and avoid the man’s gaze but found himself unable to break the hold that easily. Instead, he licked his lips and looked back nervously, begging himself to be normal for a moment. To not panic.

“Be careful, Newton,” Dumbledore said quietly, leaning in and kissing Newt’s cheek. He let the man go and sighed, turning around and making his way back to the kitchen. He called over his shoulder, “I’ll be here all day. We’ll go back over together next time.”

So Newt had gone and gotten himself a chaperone. Perfect.

With his shoulders drooped low, Newt sulked all the way back to their bedroom. He kicked the door open with his wet boots and then toed them off and left them in the doorway. He wished that he’d been more careful now, well aware of Dumbledore’s anxieties and slightly ashamed at having contributed to them. It hadn’t occurred to him for a moment to shield his arms with a spell. His old professor was right; he needed to be more cautious this time around. He couldn’t afford to treat these creatures like the ones he’d spent years down in his case with.

Just as he was walking to the bed, Newt noticed a small slip of parchment beneath his foot. He hadn’t written anything since he’d been here, but perhaps he’d overlooked a note from Dumbledore this morning. It would be just like him to miss the little things in the haze of an early rising. With a grunt of frustration, he bent down and picked it up.

It wasn’t Dumbledore’s writing. Instead, a small letter had been written in a neat and unfamiliar scrawl. Newt read it quickly.

_My dearest,_

_Perhaps I could have stood to be a bit clearer. I have not once thought of them as lesser. They are not lesser, but other. Not worthless, but of other value. Not disposable, but of different disposition. Magic blooms only in rare souls. It is granted to those who live for higher things. Oh, and what a world we could make, for all of humanity. We who live for freedom, and truth, and love…_

Newt held the paper tightly, realizing the mistake of having read something not written for him. He considered putting it away. Folding it up and slipping it underneath Dumbledore’s pillow to be forgotten about, but, with a quick bite of his lips, he looked back down anyway, unable to stop himself.

_You and I were always waiting for the opportunity to do something bigger than ourselves. It is ignorance to deny that we are capable, perhaps moreso together than apart, of doing much more. Your being here proves that. Maybe Francis can impress upon you the importance of recognizing a duty that has been given to you by divine providence._

His chest was aching. Maybe, just maybe, this hadn’t been written for Dumbledore.

But it was so stupid, Newt told himself, to think that it could be for anyone else. With another look down at the paper, Newt ran his thumb over the cursive. The ink had set a long while ago. The folds of it were worn down so as to suggest that someone had opened and closed it a multitude of times. He imagined Dumbledore standing in this very room with the parchment between his fingers, reading the lines over and over again, committing to memory the sweet words of an old acquaintance. Perhaps an old lover. Perhaps not so old.

“Oh, _god_ ,” Newt sighed, gripping the paper. “Please don’t be.”

How could he ask Dumbledore this _now_ ? It seemed so unfair to consider. And yet, Newt had left Hogwarts with a mind of his own and decided that he could live easily without his professor. He’d learned to cope with the crush that had bud throughout his adolescence, and he’d grown into a man that had felt an unending love for the creatures he helped, instead. He’d returned to Hogwarts almost innocently, rebirthed in his adulthood to somebody that hadn’t _needed_ Albus Dumbledore. Not to get him out of trouble, not to patch him up when he was broken, not to advise him in the ways that he lived.

Newt read the letter again, blinking the sting from them.

 _My dearest. My dearest. My dearest._ He read. Like a circle. Repeating and repeating. _You and I were always waiting…_

Maybe he’d expected too much.

Folding the paper neatly, Newt set it on Dumbledore’s blankets and went to his briefcase, popping open the hatch and crawling right down into the mouth of it. He was happy to have left it in here today, another stupid byproduct of waking up completely unfocused, but perhaps serendipitous in that he had somewhere comfortable to hide.

Once he’d reached the bottom of his ladder, he stood in his workspace and looked around himself.

He wondered how long he could stay here before someone came looking for him.

 

* * *

 

Dumbledore didn’t bother him for a few long hours. By then, Newt had managed to clean almost every exhibit in his case. His body was aching and bruised. His hair was matted and curled by the sweat of moving things manually. He’d gone through every creature, tidied them up, cleaned up their living spaces and then plopped down with the mooncalves, hiding behind one of the small, artificial hills he’d put in for them.

“Newt, I’ve been… I’ve been calling you,” Dumbledore said. Newt jumped, unaware that the man had even come in. “Is everything alright?”

Newt looked up at Dumbledore, the man towering over him, swathed in moonlight with concern etched into every part of his features. He was so dashing in his half-coat, rolled up sleeves, fitted trousers. But then there was the slightly lengthened beard, the hair pushed behind his ears, the bags under his eyes. Newt thought about the letter.

“I’m…” he started.

In his lap, the mooncalf began to stir. Newt closed his mouth and looked down at her, watching her breathe deeply as she rested.

Dumbledore knelt down and suddenly they were face to face. Newt wanted to look but couldn’t bring himself to do it. He laid a hand gently on the mooncalves head, petting her while he waited for Dumbledore to talk.

“Do you remember what I told you the first day in that shed?”

Every word. He had a right to assuage his curiosities.

And yet, this didn’t feel like a simple curiosity. Newt felt like in asking questions about the letter, he’d be violating a sort of privacy that everyone deserved. He shouldn’t have read it. Once he’d seen it - _my dearest_ \- he should have stopped. Newt looked up at Dumbledore and opened his mouth again to speak. He’d intended to drop it and wait a while, fix himself up, and then move on with everything. Instead, what came out was certainly unintentional.

“I stepped on your letter.”

“My letter…” Dumbledore trailed off.

“I didn’t mean to read it.”

The man looked thoroughly lost. He raised his eyebrows and repeated _my letter_ again under his breath, waiting for some sort of recognition to strike him. Eventually, it seemed to click. He said ‘ah’ in that Dumbledore way and smiled, eyes crinkling up tightly. “Oh, dear. Yes. I suppose that would create quite a few questions. I can only imagine which one you found.”

“Did that person write you a lot of them?” Newt asked, a bit harried. He tried to keep the frantic wobbling of his own nerves out of his voice.

“They did,” Dumbledore admitted, a slight touch of humor in his voice. “They still do. Newt, the person that wrote those letters, they... “ and much like on the wobbly and uncomfortable boat, Dumbledore lost his speech. He paused and thought of how to say what he meant, but closed his mouth and thought deeply for a moment about what that would be. He never lost that slight charm that painted him as a controlled man; there was always the hint of a smile on his face, but it was clear that he was struggling for something to say. When he continued, it was much quieter than before. “We weren’t just friends. I lived an entire life alongside that man. We split because of philosophical differences, and I can’t argue that it was an amiable affair. It was years ago.”

“Who is he?” Newt asked, trying to reconcile the new information with the tone of the letter he’d read.

“His name is Gellert.”

“And you came here because of him?”

“I came here because of Francis. I had no idea that the two of them were acquaintances.”

Dumbledore leaned forward and laid his hand over Newt’s, stilling him. The mooncalf beneath their hands chirped and lifted it’s head, trying to figure out why two pairs of hands were pressing onto it, and Dumbledore was careful to make sure that Newt didn’t pull away. “You were right to ask me, Newt. I agreed to come and help Francis before I knew that Gellert would be here. I don’t jump blindly. I do things precisely. I’m not always honest, but I only subvert honesty when the truth is more dangerous, or when admission would cause more grief than closure. And perhaps it’s selfish. Perhaps my standard for what is dangerous is based around my own selfish behavior, but what I did last night was not a mistake. I kissed you because I wanted to kiss you. I kissed you because your presence around me since I reintroduced myself to you has been undeniable. You’re magnetic. I noticed it years ago and I’m only now in a position to acknowledge it.”

Newt was trapped somewhere between relief and a deeper curiosity. Why hadn't Dumbledore mentioned the man before if it was nothing? How hadn't he known that a man he spent his life with knew the man who had so severely stepped off of the deep end? It was all quite unusual. And yet, there had to be some trust in a situation like this. If there wasn't, Newt might be fighting a whole different type of anxiety, and he couldn't afford to do that with a shed full of sickly and ailing animals. 

Newt could feel his nose burning. His eyes stinging. He leaned in first, the mooncalf flying from his lap as Newt’s chest bore down on it, and he kissed Dumbledore as if he’d never get to do it again. It was every moment of pent up anxiety that the last few hours had caused. There was a history. Of course, Dumbledore had loved and been loved before. Newt wasn’t concerned about that, so long as he could be sure that wrapping his arms around the man’s neck and pressing their lips even harder together meant something to them both. That when Dumbledore laughed and the man’s breath tickled his lip, it was because Newt had chosen to be here, wrapped up in a pair of strong arms that belonged to perhaps the most powerful wizard in the world.

 

* * *

 

As promised, Dumbledore followed Newt out to the shed the next time he went.

They started with the Grindylow tank, siphoning the water out of it with their wands and exchanging it for something a bit different. The creatures loved the murky waters of lake bottoms, not the waste-infested confines of a fish tank. While Newt conjured greenery to lay in the bottom of the container, Dumbledore mumbled _Engorgio_ and gave them a larger space to play. There were only two in the water. Newt gave a stern word to the one he suspected bit him, and then he wrote himself a small reminder to put a few extra in there from his own reserves.

Once the Grindylow was finished, Newt walked them both into the next exhibit.

“How long has it been since you’ve seen an Augurey?” Newt asked casually as they snuck into the small exhibit and he closed the small gate behind them. The rusted metal hinges squeaked loudly and Newt tried not to think about how grating that must have been for the creature in the room with them.

“The old Irish Pheonix,” Dumbledore cooed. “Perhaps too long.”

The Augurey had pressed itself tightly into a corner and was shivering. Newt easily built a small cave out of the mess of feathers, sticks, and errant newspaper clippings around the room, and watched as the Augurey bolted into the new enclosure.

“Did you know that uneducated wizards used to think of the Augurey’s call as a death sign?” Dumbledore asked. He had already set to work on picking up the garbage around them, pushing it into a pile. Not only had he rolled his shirt sleeves up this time, but his trouser legs had been rolled up above his ankles. His oxfords and ankle-socks were on display as he nudged a pile closer to the wall. He looked as handsome as ever, a few stray pieces of hair dangling over his forehead as he did the manual labor of cleaning the room.

“Yes,” Newt told him. “But they only sing when it’s about to rain. Why aren’t you using your wand?”

“I’m exhausted by it at the moment.”

“You’re a wizard,” Newt laughed. “How can you be exhausted by magic.”

“I’ve yet to find that out,” Dumbledore admitted. “But there’s something to be said for work that makes you sweat. It seems well-earned, almost, to see a finished product that you put your back into.”

Newt thought about it for a second and then laid his wand carefully on one of the filthy surfaces around them. Dumbledore laughed loudly, shaking his head. “Ever the student,” He said fondly. “Come and kick this pile with me. Perhaps it’ll be soothing for you.”

Newt didn’t need to kick a pile of trash. He could have easily cleaned and scourgified the room with his fingers, but he moved slowly over to where Dumbledore had gathered a fairly sizeable amount of it (for the time that he’d been in the room kicking it into form), and then he began to do the same, dragging bit after bit of discarded waste into a mountain of garbage. The two of them worked like that for a while, quietly spending time together, working off the hitch of the morning in silence. He tried not to think about Gellert, or the fact that he knew now where Dumbledore was likely running off to during the day with Francis. If he let it go and waited for the man to fill him in, then he would get more than just a half picture of imagined scenarios. Dumbledore was here with him now. Once they'd finished all of this, they'd go back to Hogwarts together. Then Newt would... Newt would decide what to do. For now, he would get some semblance of the truth around the mysteries of his old professors' life before teaching, and the truth had to be better than ignorance.

Yes, the truth was better than ignorance.

Newt said so to himself many, many times, somehow unable to convince himself that it was true. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're getting there slowly.


End file.
